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June 29, 2005 -
Approval
for President Bush is now at 45%, down two percent since
May, and is only one percent above what approval was for
Nixon at the height of Watergate. Bush gave a speech tonight,
so it is projected that his polls will rise some... it
was a good speech I thought, though I just watched wee
parts- it was free of major errors or "Bushisms"
though. The speech made several references to 9/11 and
Iraq, and most people view such statements as one of the
false reasons that led us into the war.
After
the President's address... well, mostly during, I took
a nice nap, and then I went out and repotted some lilies.
I put them in the aquarium, but they had grown to a pretty
good size, but they were still smaller than what was in
the water garden, so I thought having lily pads of a greater
variety of size would be nice.
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June 27, 2005 -
I
slept in this morning and got up at 9... but I also went
to bed earlier, and it'd seem like I had enough sleep
and I'd wake up, but then I ponder: "If I just lay
here I bet I could go back to sleep." and it seemed
like I did that several times. I think it's good to catch
up on the missed sleep every once and a while though.
Once I finally got up, I did two miles in the treadmill-
it's been months since I've used the treadmill, and with
the upcoming hiking trip I pondered it would be good to
not get winded. After lunch I went down to the humane
society and walked all the dogs, most of which are very
large and energetic, and it was certainly very hot today.
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June 23, 2005 -
I'm
taking tomorrow off to catch up on things, It's also Teresa's
birthday, so I must bid her the happiest of days. Tonight
I had karate, it seems to get more difficult, and I'm
not sure when I became so inflexible.. I guess I've spent
too many years at the computer, because I need to work
on stretching a lot more. This weekend I must work, but
other than that I do not have any painting or jobs, so
instead I will work on my portfolio, cleaning, working
on my computers, and perhaps painting some around the
homestead.
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June 21, 2005 -
Tonight
on 27 news they had Mr. Ford on, the science and astronomy
teacher at Holton High School... Holton now has the largest
observatory run by a high school in the United States-
They've actually had it for some time, but I never knew
how it ranked before tonight.
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June 20, 2005 -
Super
busy I've been! ....Sometimes I don't blog cause I'm doing
too much, and other times there's just nothing going on,
so I really have nothing to say. Today I went and worked
with Alex Fredericksen on Lin's water garden to make a
small pond that has a waterfall in it, that flows into
her larger pond. After that I put in an hour at work,
and then Brent, Teresa and I went and did a photo shoot
in the park... it was just a small shoot, but on Saturday
we had a huge one Saturday, and it was just horrible,
everything that could go wrong did. Sunday Teresa and
I went back to Matt & Judy's to paint on the fence
more.
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June 14, 2005 -
Today
I got up at 6am, a wee bit earlier than I'm use to, and
considering I stayed up till three working on some things,
I'm not too tired though. I went and got my hair cut this
morning and after that I took some pictures of the kitties.
They are almost two months old now. The water garden is
getting more lily pads, around thirty now, and has two
flowers.
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June 14, 2005 -
There's
nothing like an important project to get me motivated
to do everything else. I did get some work done on my
portfolio- I took all the pages out of it and started
to reprint some things, some things I'll leave out, and
I've been going through my hard drive to add in some more
recent projects. In addition to that to procrastinate
working on it, I cleaned out the cat room, vacuumed the
stairs, and shampooed all the carpets yesterday. I also
went over and helped Betty with her computer.
Tonight
on Nova there was an interesting program on world population
and the great shift that is currently underway. Modern
countries around the world are about to see a great decline:
Japan's current population of 126 million by the end of
the century will have fallen to only 63 million... the
reasons of this are many and differ around the world.
The main reason is that women in the modern world now
have fewer children, the average for Japan is 1.3 children
per female, and so many Japanese are waiting until very
late in life to start a family. In the developing world
a population explosion is in the works as the life expectancy
is rising, but many families are still having six or more
children. India is trying to take steps to slow rampant
overpopulation, but is now only down to 4.3 children per
female, which is still very high. The United States is
the only modern country to not be in decline, though we
now have fewer than 2 children per female, immigration
makes up for our loss.
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June 13, 2005 -
Today
I got up rather late, I guess I stayed up late too....
I updated my online portfolio a little as I work on my
real one some- so much I need to do to the real one though...
Michael
Jackson was cleared of all the charges against him today...
What will they talk about in the news now?
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June 12, 2005 -
Sunday
morning, rain is falling... no painting today I guess.
It let up around noon here, so I went down to the humane
society and cleared some trees that had fallen out of
the creek area and were giving Dad some problems when
he mowed down there. I ponder it would be an excellent
place for a nature trail- but it take the planting of
a great number of trees, as their lot is mostly a big
field, with trees just running along the periphery of
the property. When it started to rain again I went in
and took pictures of the dogs they needed to get on Petfinder.
Assimilation
of immigrants was the sticking point for the Dutch, who
rejected the EU constitution recently. Immigrants and
new member nations of poorer countries like Turkey are
extremely inflexible to the liberal lifestyle there, who
the Dutch see as a threat if too many become part of their
culture.
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June 11, 2005 -
It
was a productive day, I went to work as it was the first
Saturday of the pay period, and it was really quite busy.
Over lunch it slowed down quite a bit, but the patrons
all came back. I only had a bit of scanning to do, so
I did the interlibrary loans, made boxes, re shelved film...
The patrons hit the film today mostly- there was a lady
in today that had driven in all the way from Denver just
to come research.
After
work I mowed the yard, I ponder I'll paint some parts
of the house and garage soon. I also gathered some of
my stuff to start re-working my portfolio some.
Tonight
there was a fascinating program on the National Geographic
Channel on possible alien life, like if a planet had a
higher percentage of oxygen and less nitrogen in its atmosphere,
the air would be much more dense- this thick atmosphere
could allow very large animals to develop the ability
to fly, creatures even as large as whales.
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June 7, 2005 -
Tuesday,
I went to work today, it was a pretty nominal day- always
something to do. I came home to the air conditioner being
on.... Somehow I get off worse with the AC on as the computer
room is the highest room in the house (a couple steps
up from the rest of the upstairs) And though my bedroom
is super cool, I have a most difficult time getting the
cool air to go up those two steps and stay. I've got three
fans working on it now.
Before
my water garden restoration I had started to read Darwin's
"The Origin of Species" as there was a huge
debate going on in Topeka over Evolution v. Intelligent
Design. I've been pondering evolution at work in my very
own pond, be it very small, I can still see the process
at work. Currently we have 26 goldfish in it... and they
all started two years ago from four fantail
goldfish. If you don't know about fantails, they kinda
have two tails side by side, but three generations after
the original four fish, only about a third of the fish
have the dual tail fins. A third of the fish have single
tails just like a normal goldfish, and the remaining third
have tails that are somewhere in between single and double,
and have a single on the top half, and dual on the bottom
half. I ponder given a few more years fantailed goldfish
will be pretty rare in the pond... Fantails tend to be
rounder and their bulky tails make them slower, which
would lead to them being eaten when they are small, and
the faster ones would be able to get more food, grow larger,
and have more fry each reproductive cycle. I ponder the
fantail was the product of some type of mutation, that
breeders have cultured to keep going, and that it's a
fairly recent thing, as their offspring still readily
revert to being normal goldfish rather quickly unless
action is taken to remove the non-fantails from the population.
Another interesting characteristic of goldfish are the
white ones. White goldfish crop up somewhat frequently.
Our four original fantails were totally orange, but we
have five or six goldfish today with white spots, and
one is totally white.
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June 5, 2005 -
It
was a very productive day for me- I finished the water
garden, though I have to get some river rock to put down
in a couple places, but other than that it's very happy.
I also cleaned out my aquarium, and boy was it a mess.
I also did some random organizing, and I made a big list
of things to get done this weekend. This evening I took
some pictures of the water garden- there are no lily pads
quite yet, but a frog has returned already. I'm not sure
where the frogs went, they must have gotten angry at me
for trying to catch them when I was draining the pond,
but at least one is now back.
How
the mighty have fallen; After its second week of being
open Star Wars placed third at the box office. The animated
film "Madagascar" came in first, and "The
Longest Yard" took second place.
Vice
President Cheney said today that Iraq was in the "last
throws of the insurgency." He made it seems as if
the war would be over soon.
Secretary
Rumsfeld today warmed China to stop spending on weapons-
that "it was pouring huge resources into its military
and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons despite
facing no threat." The Chinese were quick to state
that the US is not the only country to be threaten, and
that Rumsfelt acted as if he was threatened by the emergence
of China. It was also pointed out on CNN today that this
year the United States exceeded all other nations combined
in military spending, and that it was a little silly for
Rumsfeld to attack China on the grounds they were spending
too much. I do see China as a threat though; as they are
focusing a good deal of their military toward a possible
attack on Taiwan if they ever try to declare independence.
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June 2, 2005 -
The
water garden is getting more together- Images will come
soon once it's complete. I had karate tonight, but cut
it a little short to work on the plants, and tomorrow
I'm going to take in some more plants for people... and
I still have more lily tubers if anyone wants them.
This
weekend I have a photo shoot with Brent and Teresa, and
Brent also asked us go with him to stay at his families'
cabin in Colorado in the end of June and start of July.
I've never been to Colorado before.
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